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Friday, February 22, 2013

Family Lives Without Money—By Choice—and Thrives

A Berlin family
of three has been living on practically nothing but love and the
goodwill of others for more than two years and counting—not as a victims
of the rough economy, but as activists who are on a money strike to
protest what they call our “excess-consumption society.”

“As
consumers, we support the system, and we are all responsible for making
a wasteful society,” Raphael Fellmer, 29, told Yahoo! Shine. “This
strike is to inspire other people to reflect about our other
possibilities.”

Fellmer,
who said he’d held jobs since he was 12 years old, began his protest
after years of working in hotels, bars, restaurants and various offices.
In 2010, after graduating from college in the Hague as a European
Studies major, he and two friends embarked upon a 15-month “journey of
humanity” to raise awareness of environmental destruction and of
society’s many wastes, including estimates that about one-third of all
food produced worldwide (valued at about $1 trillion a year) gets
wasted.

That
trip involved hitchhiking from Europe to Mexico without cash, simply
depending on the goodwill and excess resources of others. It carried
them over more than 19,000 miles on more than 500 vehicles—including a
sailboat that took the trio from the Canary Islands to Brazil in
exchange for crew duties—and soon led Fellmer to meet his wife, Nieves
Palmer, who became pregnant along the way.

Now
the couple, along with their 18-month-old daughter Alma Lucia, are
continuing to live nearly money-free in Berlin, where they do odd jobs
and organizing work in exchange for living space, with roommates, in the
Peace House Martin Niemöller, which contains various non-profits.
(Though Fellmer uses no money, he said Palmer does use a little, mainly
in the form of child support she receives from the government, which is
granted to all children.)

Fellmer
has become a full-time activist in the name of bringing attention to
problem of waste and overconsumption, running organizations and websites
including The (R)evolution: In Harmony with the Earth. There is a network of others, too, beyond the two pals he traveled with. A 2010 documentary called “Living Without Money,” for
example, profiles a 68-year-old German woman named Heidemarie Schwermer
who gave up money 14 years ago. She says she’s never felt freer.

But
Fellmer admits his lifestyle is radical, explaining that it’s to get
his message across. “Not everybody needs to do this to such an extreme.
This is for protest. We want to inspire people to think about changes
they can make. There are so many tools out there, so many ways to reduce
one's carbon footprint.”

One
is through the fast-growing German movement of “foodsharing,” in which
adherents use the Internet to share edible food that’s been foraged from
grocery-store dumpsters. Fellmer founded an organization in which he
partnered with a leading German organic-food chain to create an
efficient way of “rescuing” food for distribution just before it is
thrown away. He's also part of a website,foodsharing.de,
which has registered more than 12,000 people across the country in just
two months of its existence, he said, and has drawn interest from
around the world in more than 20 languages (6 of which Fellmer speaks).
In the U.S., where about 40 percent of food—or about $165 billion
worth—gets wasted annually, there exists a similar fringe movement of
vegan dumpster divers called “freegans.”

Other
ways to take part in what Fellmer calls “collaborative consumption”
include using popular couchsurfing sites, or finding people with empty
homes who need long-term house-sitters. “We have not only a surplus of
food but of housing,” he said. “Everything we need is already there. We
just need to make the connections.”

Even
as a new parent, Fellmer said he’s been able to stave off money-related
anxieties. “Children need from parents love, attention, time. All these
materialistic things are really ridiculous,” he said, adding that used
baby clothes are as easily had as thrown-away food. Germany offers
universal medical care, although Fellmer and his family have managed to
find a dentist to give them free services, and did gardening and repair
work for a gynecologist when Palmer was pregnant. (They did spend their
one bit of money on the overseas journey, however, when Palmer, a former
psychologist, used funds she had saved in order to pay a midwife.)

Though
Fellmer’s parents are supportive of his lifestyle and “pretty open,” he
admitted to having plenty of critics. “People are very creative with
their negative comments. They say I’m lazy, abusing other people,” he
said. “But when they talk to me, they learn I’m working 40 to 50 hours a
week on projects for the good of society.”

Mostly,
Fellmer hopes his money strike can help change others’ lives. “Money is
hampering our dreams. Most people have forgotten it, or are completely
afraid of living without money, so they are enslaved by the monetary
system,” he said. “I hope to motivate people to believe a little more in
their dreams.”

assange

At midday on Friday 5 February, 2016 Julian Assange, John Jones QC, Melinda Taylor, Jennifer Robinson and Baltasar Garzon will be speaking at a press conference at the Frontline Club on the decision made by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on the Assange case.